Sunday, August 24, 2008

I wrote earlier today about the Diversity Visa Lottery, and the scams that have grown up around it to milk the innocent and the gullible. But DV isn’t the only immigrant-friendly program designed to bring more needy Third-Worlders into the country, and every program is accompanied by scams and frauds that have been devised to exploit it.

Fraud and corruption are inevitable wherever there are large and expensive government programs. When that much money is being thrown around, fraudulent activity is simply a given, and the larger the program is, the more fraud that accompanies it. It’s normal human behavior. People do what comes naturally.

The amazing thing about this latest report is not that massive fraud was involved in an immigration program, but that the State Department actually investigated and detected it. According to the BBC:

Fraud Halts US Refugee Programme

The United States has suspended a programme aimed at reuniting refugees from Africa with relatives in the US because of widespread fraud.

The US state department said DNA tests showed the majority of those applying had no family relationships in the US.

Thousands of Africans have been allowed to settle in the US under its P3 family reunification programme.

The scheme offers close family members the chance to join loved ones who have already made America their home.

But DNA tests on applicants in seven African countries showed that only around 20% of those trying to enter the US actually had a blood relationship.

The DNA tests were initially carried out in Kenya on some 500 refugees, mainly Somalis and Ethiopians, who were awaiting resettlement.

“After the samples suggested high rates of fraud, we expanded testing to Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana, Guinea, Gambia and Ivory Coast,” said state department spokesman Robert Wood.

Apart from Ivory Coast, which had smaller samples, the results from those tests indicated a similar level of fraud, prompting officials to suspend the scheme.

Why did the State Department order the DNA tests in the first place? Why weren’t the officials involved afraid of being accused of “racism” and “profiling”? Why not turn a blind eye and let all the “diversity” continue unabated?

The tendency among racist liberal elites is to patronize Third World people and assume that because they are poor and illiterate, they are also stupid. But they’re not, and when they see an opportunity, they’ll take it. For people raised under various forms of despotism, gaming the system is second nature.

Pop the champagne cork for this one — the State Department did something right.